Port Authority executive director Patrick Foye listens during a meeting of the Port Authority Board of Commissioners on Feb. 19.

Associated Press

The current and former executive directors of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey weighed in this week on Gov. Chris Christie’s suggestion that the agency should be dismantled in the wake of an embarrassing political scandal triggered by his subordinates.

Their verdict on a break-up of the agency that gave rise to the George Washington Bridge affair: not easy, and not likely.

“It’s a very challenging, important and complex endeavor,” Executive Director Patrick Foye said Tuesday, after he spoke to a trade group in Midtown Manhattan. “The assets and finances and financing streams are bi-state. It would be an extraordinarily challenging and difficult endeavor.”

Mr. Foye declined to offer his own opinion about the break-up proposal, saying it was a policy issue to be considered by a newly formed oversight committee of the authority’s board, which will consider potential reforms of the agency, as well as the governors of both states.

Given concerns expressed by both Mr. Christie of New Jersey and Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, Mr. Foye said “these issues will be explored in a serious way.”

Mr. Foye’s predecessor at the top executive post was more skeptical of the break-up suggestion, which Mr. Christie floated last week in a press conference, after the release of his administration’s internal investigation of the bridge scandal.

The report found that there was no evidence Mr. Christie knew of the lane closures before they occurred, and blamed a rogue authority employee and his former deputy chief of staff for what was apparently a political plot to inflict traffic jams on the Democratic mayor at the New Jersey end of the bridge.

Chris Ward, the former Port Authority executive director, mocked Mr. Christie’s suggestion of splitting the Port Authority, and said the lane closure affair is no reason to break apart the agency that manages six interstate river crossings and the region’s three major airports, in addition to owning the World Trade Center site and operating the PATH transit network, among other assets.

“Reminds me of the child who gets a great gift on Christmas, breaks the toy that afternoon, and then tells his parents it didn’t work anyway,” Mr. Ward said of Mr. Christie’s remarks.

A spokesman for Mr. Christie said the Port Authority “requires fundamental, structural change,” which should be engineered by an impartial panel of experts. Mr. Christie, like his departed Port Authority chairman, David Samson, objects to current plans to take input from a panel of experts including former authority officials on how to improve operations.

The spokesman forwarded a selection of Mr. Christie’s remarks from Friday’s press conference.

“The best way perhaps to deal with this, at least something to consider, is, you know, taking the Hatfields and the McCoys and moving them to separate homes, because they haven’t been able to get along with each other despite my best efforts, the best efforts of Governor Cuomo, and many of our predecessors,” Mr. Christie said at the time.

There is a history of bad blood between Mr. Ward and Mr. Christie. Mr. Ward was forced out as chief of the authority after serving as the point man on a proposed toll and fare increase in 2011. Mr. Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo publicly recoiled at the proposed hikes, and the authority later approved smaller increases.

Mr. Ward’s eventual replacement, Mr. Foye, is the official who angrily reversed the lane closures after discovering they were going on in September. Mr. Foye and Mr. Christie’s top allies at the authority clashed bitterly, according to people familiar with the matter and correspondence that has emerged in the investigations of the bridge scandal.

“As often has been said, if the region didn’t have the Port Authority, it would be struggling to figure out how to create one,” Mr. Ward said. “And given its history and regional development, it’s essentially impossible to break the regional model now.”

The Port Authority hasn’t publicly commented on Mr. Christie’s remarks. But a new committee of the Port Authority board, led by Vice Chairman Scott Rechler, a Cuomo appointee, will consider proposals to overhaul the agency’s operations and governance in the coming months.

Mr. Rechler said last week that any reform proposals would be considered, but he similarly warned against abrupt or extreme measures, given the two states’ mutual obligations and the size of the authority. The authority last month approved a new $27.6 billion capital plan and carries around $20 billion in debt.

Speaking Tuesday, Mr. Foye wouldn’t discuss the Christie administration report, which was prepared by lawyers from the firm of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, who have been hired to represent the governor’s office in the federal and state investigations of the scandal.

Mr. Foye said he was not asked to be interviewed for the report. He said he only read two pages of the report’s more than 300 pages concerning potential changes with the Port Authority’s structure.

“I’ve not read the remainder and don’t intend to, so I don’t have an opinion,” he told reporters when asked about the report.

Mr. Foye also offered a muted send-off for Mr. Samson, the Christie ally who resigned Friday, the same day the governor publicly addressed the report on the bridge affair. Messrs. Foye and Samson had privately clashed for months, according to people familiar with the matter, and documents revealed in a legislative investigation of the bridge scandal show Mr. Samson angrily protesting what he believed were Mr. Foye’s efforts to take the public high ground in controversies that emanated from the New Jersey side of the authority.

Asked if he would miss Mr. Samson, Mr. Foye did not mention his tenure at the agency.

“Chairman Samson has served ably as attorney general of the State of New Jersey and I think he is to be thanked and commended for his public service,” Mr. Foye said.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Samson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.